[aaronatthedoublef]

BA - I saw you were making a bread with apple chunks in it. Every time I've had bread with actual pieces of apple in it the bread is gluey where the apples are from too much moisture. Do you cook the apples before you put them in? Cover them in flour or cornstarch? Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made more shortbread cookies this week. The last batch was too crumbly but I made it work. This batch I upped the butter and reduced the flour and the dough came together like the pictures in the recipe.

More challah too. I made two two lb. loaves and 16 3 oz rolls. I did four strand braids. I'll try some six next and see which I like. I think I'll switch to fours from now on except for special occasions. They just look much nicer than threes.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sorry I'm late to this. I use SAF Red in challah and apple cider is 44% of flour with honey being 14%. The only full on fail I had was when I used SAF Gold.

I have a sealed block of Fleischmann's ADY I could try that too. I have no idea how old it is though and if it is still alive.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Just found out our ShopRites have it for $2.95/5lbs so I may head there and by a bunch. Normally I buy 10lb bags at Costco for $9.99 but these are cheaper. Five lbs. is more convenient for home use but 10 lbs. is for challah making at temple. Golden whole wheat is on sale too. That appears to be the replacement for white whole wheat.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Whoa! That is great. We're on sale $4.50 for 5lbs with no limit. I'm buying a bunch as I've been using it up pretty quickly.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. These are all still sealed in their original packaging. It's BRM which iseems to be sturdier than KAB. I buy several 10lb bags of KAB bread flour a month and they ALWAYS rip. It's a little frustrating.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Kimbob - beautiful bread!

Wow Mike! We had Tommy John mugs from a give-away when he played with the White Sox.

I made ciabatta and pizza dough this week. I made challah and tried a 4 strand brade which I haven't done in years. I made two loaves. The first was a little wonky the second better. The dough was too dry so I stuck the ends together with extra water. I'll do more next week. My goal is to get up to six strands. Violet's bat mitzvah is in July and she has decided I will make the challah for it.

I made a new, salty shortbread recipe from Serious eats. They use brown sugar instead of white but that's not new. I think the first person I saw do that was Dorie Greenspan about 20 years ago. I subbed out the regular butter for brown butter. The dough was a little crumbly but I "utzed it together" as my mom would have said. They also did not spread. I wonder if the brown butter caused either or both of these. They did taste good.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. I've tended to put mixers in two categories - stand or planetary like your Cuisinart and my KitchenAid - and spirals mixers like the Famags I've used. The Ank is interesting because it tries to be a hybrid that wants to be able to mix bread and cakes, cookies, etc. It appears to be a spiral trying to be like a planetary. Ooni makes one now as well now. The folks at Pleasant Hill said the Ank works with much large batches of dough than a comparable stand mixer. It also works very well with stiffer doughs like bagel dough, especially when using high protein flour. The bagel guys my son works for love the Ooni for home bagel making but that is all they bake so they cannot tell me about cookies or cakes.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The scone talk is interesting. I've always used bread flour for mine. I've always wanted to try pastry flour for the lower gluten content, like BA, but my family likes them so much I am reluctant to tamper too much with the recipe. I go between powdered and liquid buttermilk based on what I have on hand. Sometimes I use raisins (when I want to make them "healthy") other times chocolate chips but that's about it.

On the toque front - I took a bread class at the CIA yesterday and they gave us aprons and toques. I gave Violet the toque and she wore it most of the rest of the night. It turns out the only reason she didn't want to put her hair up was because she was lazy and didn't want to go upstairs to find a hat or rubber band! Go figure.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. I didn't know Wolf was available without red knobs! It makes sense they are but I also tend to leave color choices to Kate as I am color blind and don't necessarily see how different colors will work together.

The hood we have now is large and very powerful. When my kids were little I used to tell them to hold onto something when I turned it on. I don't mind the power but it is terribly loud. I've asked to see if they can put the air-mover in a different location, closer to the vent and farther from the kitchen to make it quieter when we install a new hood. We also have to install some sort of passive vent to be up to the new code. It opens when the hood fan comes on and functions like a fireplace flue. So it will make our kitchen cooler in the winter and warmer in the summer raising our heating and cooling bills. The idea is to prevent the hood accidentally blowing out any pilot lights in the basement. Our furnace and hot water heaters are gas but none have pilots so there is no need for this waste. Ah well...

[aaronatthedoublef]

Happy birthday BA!

Skeptic, I may try a toque and while daughter might have worn it when she was younger, now that she is a tween she is a much tougher customer.

Like Mike, I think those are for people who have earned them as is the title "Chef". Too many people call themselves chef today.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Can I bake the rustic sourdough without a cloche? It looks good and I may start making sourdough again since my wife and daughter now eat it. Violet keeps saying she'll eat "whole grain bread" meanwhile everything I make is at least one third whole wheat (does that count as whole grain these day?). I don't think she'll eat 100% whole wheat bread but I may try that. She is not thrilled with the flax I put in pizza dough and hates seeds in breads!

I made a recipe for applesauce oatmeal muffins that Violet thought was too dry. It needed more apple and maybe some more liquid. I'll try it again.

I made chocolate chip cookies. Violet wanted to help but after seeing her hair all over the butter I told her she had to put her hair up. She wouldn't so I made them myself. Probably will make some more ciabatta this week.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks all! Good tips. We're working with an architect who does design that we've known almost since we moved here. She is also a mom who has prepared meals for a family of five so that meets one of my main criteria. I am tired of designers who don't cook telling me how a kitchen should look and function. I won't subject you to my full rant on that topic. Suffice it to say, I have the whole appliance garage concept that is being forced on me. I am getting a kitchen clock back after all these years! Hooray for simple pleasures.

We also know the cabinet maker they are recommending and she built some cabinets for us years ago. We ran into BAs problem where our dishes did not really fit in the cabinet so I understand that too and we'll try to account for that.

We're looking to replace the granite with soap stone. I do not like granite because, being color blind, things tend to be camouflaged when I spill them. Some stainless would be nice too but that may not be in the budget.

I think I will steer away from an Ank as it will be too challenging to us. I'll have a big stand mixer (8 or 10qt) and my 5qt. The bowl comes loose on my 5qt now and I am not sure if it is the threads on the bowl or on the mixer. I brace it against the stand and that helps but it still is loose and jiggles and is noisy. I think I have another bowl I can test with.

The contractor has recommended a local appliance dealer that I loathe. He has had nothing but good experiences with them but I've had horrible after sales service from them after buying our current, very expensive, range. They did not have a professional installed set it up so we ended up with scratched floors and a hole drilled through kitchen floor and connected to an outlet in the basement with extension cord. When things malfunction and need repair they offer no service and I had to find someone to fix it on my own which was VERY challenging. Add to this the brand is unresponsive and will not allow me to order parts and repair it myself and I'm pretty down on the people who sold this to me.

Thanks everyone for all your thoughts.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks all. Our current cabinets are a mixture. Out pantry cabinet and floor level cabinets all have drawers. Our above counter cabinets are shelves. I don't think I want drawers above the counter. My wife is set on cabinets that go all the way to the ceiling but given that I am the tallest one in the house at 5'7" I think that things on the top shelves will go there and never be used.

I love the drawer/counter mixture. Our kitchen is deceptively small. It takes up two rooms but we really only work in one. We're going to put some things in the working part of the kitchen into the eating part of the kitchen. That will give us more storage and workspace in the working part of the kitchen.

I have used the magnet test and then checked about All Clad on the internet. At first glance it says they are induction compatible and they are NOW. All Clad added a magnetic plate to them in 2025. Since ours were wedding gifts they date back to 2001 and are not magnetic. I found out Kate was confusing induction with convection so I did some disambiguation. Lots of people are freaking out about gas. I grew up with it and with pilot lights so I guess I don't notice the smell. Also, houses these days are sealed a lot tighter than my parents house so the smell is more noticeable. I still want a gas cook top and will settle for an electric oven. All the bakeries I know have put them in and swear by them. Things have obviously improved since I worked on the 50 year old electric oven in the bakery in Seattle. We'll probably go with a Wolf since they are the most common and easiest to have serviced. I still want to be able to adjust the oven myself so I'll look for that.

BA - I still want to know about your experience with the Ank. Do you use it for bread? Cakes and cookies? How does it work for larger batches?

Thanks again

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - thanks for the magnet test. Our popcorn popper and our All Clad both say they are induction compatible but neither will hold a magnet. Looking deeper into All Clad, they added a magnetic layer in 2025 to be induction compatible. Our pans were a wedding present and are 25 years old and that was before induction became popular.

We are redoing cabinets and thanks for the tip about drawers. We'll definitely do that. The pullout surface is a good idea too. We don't really have a ton of counter space and that might be a nice way to add more.

Our island is finished butcher block (not sure why the builder did that) and we're swapping that for unfinished butcher block. We have granite counter tops now and we are trying to figure out what to replace those with. We're thinking about soap stone. Some stainless would be nice.

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